NEW DELHI, 13 June — In her flip-flop style, the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee again showed the inclination of returning to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), as she yesterday said “she prefers to keep options open for joining the NDA.” There is no ‘hide and seek’ about it,” she added.
Earlier, when asked about her party’s chances of joining the NDA, she however said, “Why ask the same question everyday.”
“I’m not ruling it out, nor am I saying it’s going to happen. Whatever it is, it will be a collective decision. We are in no hurry,” she said after holding a meeting on her party’s recent poll debacle. Mamata said the previous decision of coming out of the NDA was a collective decision of the party leadership.
Mamata walked out of the NDA in March after the website Tehelka exposed high-level corruption in arms purchases. However, the Trinamool is divided over rejoining the government at the center, party sources say.
Though some party legislators are against returning to the NDA now, fearing it would be seen as political opportunism, most of its members of parliament want to revive their “old ties” with the government. Some legislators say it would be best to wait for “some time” and watch the outcome of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP) before taking a final decision on rejoining the NDA.
The elections in UP, could affect the stability of the Vajpayee government at the center, if his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is voted out of power in UP. Some pundits think that is possible. The BJP and its allies were routed in assembly elections in four states and a Union territory last month.
Though provincial polls do not affect New Delhi, the Uttar Pradesh elections are widely expected to cause major reverberations. The debate within the Trinamool on embracing Vajpayee again erupted after it miserably failed to dislodge West Bengal’s ruling Communists last month despite teaming up with Sonia Gandhi’s main opposition Congress party.
Many Trinamool leaders then blamed the election loss on the Congress alliance, and began pressing Mamata to return to the NDA fold. According to Trinamool sources, a section of party legislators is now against immediately returning to the Vajpayee government.
“Their argument is if the BJP fares badly in UP, the government’s future may be in jeopardy. Then the Trinamool’s association with NDA might prove non-profitable,” a party leader said.
Mamata is under “tremendous pressure” from the MPs to renew political ties with the BJP and the Vajpayee-led multiparty coalition, party sources said. Some MPs argue the party could first extend legislative support to the government from the outside, and then rejoin it after a few months.
